Metal foundation pile

ABSTRACT

A metal foundation pile, which is composed of a plurality of parallel metal bars, which are fixedly interconnected by metal cross-members and carry at least one pile shoe at the bottom thereof. The cross-members are spaced along the length of the bars and are driven into the earth with the bars when the piles are sunk in the ground.

United States Patent Van Weele [451 Aug. 15, 1972 [5 METAL FOUNDATION PILE References Cited 72 Inventor: Abraham Francois van Weele, Wad- UNITED STATES PATENTS dmxveen, Netherlands 3,333,428 8/1967 Daugherty ..61/53 [73] Assignee: N. V. tot Aanneming van Werken 546,710 9/1895 Rogers ..52/654 voorhen H. J. Nederhorst, Gouda, 2,846,852 8/1758 Cappel ..61/53 Netherlands FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS [22] Filed: July 6,1970 9 G B 61/53 pp NOI: 52,200 2,459 185 reat mam Primary ExaminerJacob Shapiro [30] Foreign Application Priority Data Attorney--Waters, Roditi, Schwartz & Nissen July 10, 1969 Netherlands ..69l066l July 10, 1969 Netherlands ..6910665 [571 ABSTRACT I A metal foundation pile, which is composed of a plu- [52] U-S. Cl. 52/292, 52/299, rality of parallel metal bars, which are fixedly inter- I t C Eozd 126 connected by metal cross-members and carry at least I] a a u h t th bott th Th 581 Field of Search ....6l/53,46, 46.5, 53.5; 173/49; one p e S 0e a e Om mo e cmss mem bers are spaced along the length of the bars and are driven into the earth with the bars when the piles are sunk in the ground.

10 Claims, 5 Drawing Figures METAL FOUNDATION PILE BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The invention relates to a metal foundation pile for forming a foundation for a building structure, which pile is to be driven into the earth, in particular by means of a vibrator.

When metal foundation piles with a small cross-section and a great length have to be vibrated into the earth, a problem arises in that only a restricted force of the vibrator can be applied and therefore only a partial utilization of the vibrator weight is permissable in view of the rather small moment of inertia of the piles, as otherwise the danger of buckling would exist.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a foundation pile which shows important advantages in the above respect.

For this purpose the foundation pile according to the invention is composed of a plurality of parallel metal bars, which are interconnected by means 'of metal cross-members.

According to the invention the required cross-section of the foundation pile is distributed over a plurality of bars, which are interconnected by means of crossmembers, so that the foundation pile itself as well as the single bars obtain a rigidity which is such, that no buckling will occur, when the maximum strength blow of the vibrator and thus the total vibrator weight is applied to the top of the bars, or even when a downwardly directed tensile force is exerted on the vibrator.

Preferably, each bar consists of at least one rolled billet with a rectangular cross-section. Thus, unfinished products are used as bars, which leads to a substantial decrease of the costs of the foundation pile. Further, the mill scale of the rolled billets will give some protection against corrosion, and a further corrosion resistant layer may be applied at low costs due to the favorable ratio between the outer surface area and the cross-section of the billets. Due to this favorable ratio between the outer surface and the cross-section, a downwardly directed force of friction on the foundation pile, which may sometimes occur, is considerably reduced.

Preferably the rolled billets have a maximum crosssection of X 10 cm*, as such cross-section still allows the foundation pile to be vibrated into the earth without any difficulty.

The foundation piles according to the invention may have a very great length. For this purpose a plurality of rolled billets are positioned one above the other and are coupled by means of intermediate coupling members.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a front view of a first embodiment of the foundation pile according to the invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-section along the line IIII in FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a top view of the foundation pile according to FIG. 1, wherein the pile shoe is omitted.

FIG. 4 is a front view of a modified embodiment of the foundation pile according to the invention.

FIG. 5 is a cross-section along the line VV in FIG. 4.

DESCRIPTION OF TWO PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows a first embodiment of the metal foundation pile according to the invention. This foundation pile is composed of three parallel metal bars 1 of square cross-section. These bars 1 form the edges of an imaginary triangular prism and are interconnected by means of cross-strips 2. The cross-strips 2 are placed at different levels in the longitudinal direction of the foundation pile. The cross-strips 2 are welded at their end portions to the respective bars 1. The distance between successive cross-strips 2, which interconnect the same two bars 1, amounts to l 2 m in the lower portion of the foundation pile, but may be considerably larger, e.g. 5 m, in the upper portion of the foundation pile.

A common pile shoe 3 is mounted underneath the bars 1. This pile shoe 3 has the shape of a grid and is welded to the three bars 1.

The three interconnected bars 1, together with the underlying pile shoe 3, are vibrated into the earth, during which operation no danger of buckling exists despite the small cross-section of the bars 1.

The metal foundation pile shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 differs from the foundation pile according to the FIGS. 1 3 in that a separate pile shoe 4 is mounted underneath each bar 1. These pile shoes 4 again have the shape of a grid.

Although the embodiments of the foundation pile according to the invention as shown in the drawings comprise three bars 1, it will be understood that a larger number of metal bars interconnected by metal crossstrips may be applied, which bars then form the edges of an imaginary multisided prism.

Further, the foundation pile may be built up of a plurality of elements, which are positioned one above the other and are coupled with each other. Each of these elements consists of a plurality of parallel metal bars 1, which are interconnected by metal cross-strips 2.

Tests were made with a foundation pile according to the invention on a site, in which earth layers having a cone resistance of 200 300 kg/cm occur at a depth of 6 15 m. It was found that a foundation pile according to the invention with a length of 18 m and with a single grid shaped pile shoe having an overall surface of 3,000 cm could be completely vibrated into the earth within 3 4 minutes.

An important advantage of the foundation pile according to the invention consists in that only a slight earth displacement is necessary when the pile is driven into the earth. This enables the mutual distance between the piles to be much smaller than would be possible when solid piles with the same bearing capacity are used. The mutual pile distance may, for instance, be cm when foundation piles according to the invention are employed, while this distance would be cm when solid piles are used. This is of particular importance in the foundations of tall building structures such as factory chimneys, when a large number of foundation piles has to be driven into the earth close to one another.

Due to the simple shape of the cross-section of the foundation pile according to the invention, it is possible to apply a corrosion resistant layer at low costs.

The foundation pile according to the invention may also be applied as a tensile pile. In such case, the foundation pile and the pile shoe, and successive elements of the foundation pile when the same is composed of a plurality of elements positioned one above the other, have to be rigidly interconnected.

In an important embodiment of the foundation pile according to the invention each bar consists of at least one rolled billet with a rectangular cross-section. As this material may be obtained at a low price, the costs of the foundation pile are considerably decreased.

The invention is not restricted to the embodiments shown in the drawings, which may be varied within the scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A metal foundation pile, comprising; a plurality of spaced upright parallel metal bars, a plurality of horizontally extending elongated metallic cross-members interconnecting said metal bars, said crossmember each having end portions welded to two adjacent ones of said metal bars and being vertically spaced from each other, and a plurality of pile shoes separate from each other, each said pile shoe being fastened to the bottom of a respective one of said metal bars, each said pile shoe being of an essentially gridshaped configuration.

2. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 1, wherein said cross-members consist of cross-strips, the width of which extends in the longitudinal direction of the bars.

3. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 1, wherein the distance between successive cross-members, which interconnect the same two bars, amounts to l 2 m in at least the lower portion of the foundation pile.

4. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 1, wherein each bar consists of a rolled billet with a rectangular cross-section.

5. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 4, wherein said rolled billet has a maximum cross-section of 10 X 10 cm".

6. For use in combustion with a top driving vibrator, a metal foundation pile, comprising; a plurality of spaced upright parallel metal bars, a plurality of horizontally extending elongated metallic cross-members fixedly interconnecting said metal bars, said crossmembers each having end portions welded to two adjacent ones of said metal bars and being vertically spaced from each other along the length of the bars to prevent buckling of said bars due to application of load thereto for driving the pile into the earth, and a common pile shoe fastened to the bottoms of said metal bars to initiate penetration into the earth due to application of load at the top of the pile, said cross-members being driven with said bars into the earth, said pile shoe being of an essentially grid-shaped configuration.

7. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 6, wherein said cross-members consist of cross-strips, the width of which extends in the longitudinal direction of the bars.

8. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 6, wherein the distance between successive cross-members, which interconnect the same two bars, is l 2 m at least at the lower portion of the foundation pile.

9. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 6, wherein each bar consists of a rolled billet of rectangular crosssection.

10. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 4, wherein said rolled billet has a maximum cross-section of 10 X 10 cm 

1. A metal foundation pile, comprising; a plurality of spaced upright parallel metal bars, a plurality of horizontally extending elongated metallic cross-members interconnecting said metal bars, said cross-member each having end portions welded to two adjacent ones of said metal bars and being vertically spaced from each other, and a plurality of pile shoes separate from each other, each said pile shoe being fastened to the bottom of a respective one of said metal bars, each said pile shoe being of an essentially grid-shaped configuration.
 2. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 1, wherein said cross-members consist of cross-strips, the width of which extends in the longitudinal direction of the bars.
 3. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 1, wherein the distance between successive cross-members, which interconnect the same two bars, amounts to 1 - 2 m in at least the lower portion of the foundation pile.
 4. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 1, wherein each bar consists of a rolled billet with a rectangular cross-section.
 5. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 4, wherein said rolled billet has a maximum cross-section of 10 X 10 cm2.
 6. For use in combustion with a top driving vibrator, a metal foundation pile, comprising; a plurality of spaced upright parallel metal bars, a plurality of horizontally extending elongated metallic cross-members fixedly interconnecting said metal bars, said cross-members each having end portions welded to two adjacent ones of said metal bars and being vertically spaced from each other along the length of the bars to prevent buckling of said bars due to application of load thereto for driving the pile into the earth, and a common pile shoe fastened to the bottoms of said metal bars to initiate penetration into the earth due to application of load at the top of the pile, said cross-members being driven with said bars into the earth, said pile shoe being of an essentially grid-shaped configuration.
 7. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 6, wherein said cross-members consist of cross-strips, the width of which extends in the longitudinal direction of the bars.
 8. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 6, wherein the distance between successive cross-members, which interconnect the same two bars, is 1 - 2 m at least at the lower portion of the foundation pile.
 9. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 6, wherein each bar consists of a rolled billet of rectangular cross-section.
 10. A foundation pile as claimed in claim 4, wherein said rolled billet has a maximum cross-section of 10 X 10 cm2. 